40 percent:

Why

Its voice assistant technology is the Siri of China, and its real-time portable translator puts AI to remarkable use, overcoming dialect, slang, and background noise to translate between Chinese and a dozen other languages with surprising accuracy.

100 times:

Why

After a drop in sales last fall, unveiled a new machine, NovaSeq, that will be capable of sequencing 48 entire human genomes in two and a half days—and could one day push the cost of genome sequencing down to $100.

$850,000:

Why

Despite controversies over fake news, live streaming video, and discriminatory advertising, and poor sales of its Oculus VR headset, it continues to work on interesting applications of AI and VR, and its Instagram business is singing.

20:

number of natural-language data sets built into the company’s AI research tool, ParlAI.

182 million:

Why

Its fast-growing cloud business has reduced the software giant’s reliance on PC sales. Its expanding team of quantum computing experts hopes to develop commercially viable products to compete with efforts by Google and IBM.

106,000:

Why

Autopilot accidents, car maintenance problems, and concerns about its solar strategy and ability to produce enough cars have hurt, but cofounder Elon Musk continues to take big bets. Battery cell production has begun at his giant Nevada “gigafactory.”

400,000 plus:

Why

Twelve years and $200 million in the making, its inexpensive, portable genetic analyzer has been successfully tested from Antarctica to space and shows promising for on-the-spot diagnostic testing, germ monitoring, and more.

882,000 letters:

record length of a single DNA strand read continuously by one of its machines

500,000:

Why

Headed by an academic from Carnegie Mellon University, the company is still in startup mode but has been garnering attention since last August, when it won the Pentagon’s DARPA contest with a bot designed to autonomously spot, test, and fix software security flaws.

14:

number of previously undiscovered vulnerabilities in networking devices the company’s tools have found

60,000:

Why

Quickly expanding the artificial intelligence in its Alibaba Cloud platform, including industry-specific products, and launching a global electronic trade platform to build its business with small and medium-size companies around the world.

500,000:

Why

Launched by well-regarded researchers and funded with venture capital backed by Chinese and U.S. pharmaceutical companies, it will sequence anyone’s genome for just $1,000 and interpret it, too. In 2017, it started offering to sequence newborns in China.

1,250:

number of conditions, risks, and traits it will tell parents about in their newborns

Why

20 percent:

Why

Though its glasses have not been a runaway hit, Snap was strategically smart to recast itself as a camera company. It’s entertaining users with face-altering filters and pioneering the use of machine vision and augmented reality for socializing.

3 billion:

Why

Its Alipay business, dominant in China, is moving into new markets with investments in India, Korea, and elsewhere. It’s now exploring AI as a means of underwriting lending, and blockchain to record customers’ charitable donations.

450 million:

Why

Despite the high-profile loss this year of its well-regarded head of AI, Andrew Ng, the company is doing important work in the field, including leading China’s National Engineering Lab of Deep Learning Technology and Application.